Photo by Jennifer Boyer / Flickr
Berlin poet, essayist, and playwright Esther Dischereit responds to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shelling near Babyn Yar, the site of Nazi Germany’s 19…
Russia
March 8, 2022
February 24, 2022Photo by Steve Evans / Flickr A longtime scholar, translator, and promoter of Ukrainian literature reflects on the existential crisis confronting Ukraine—and the West—today. In Pavlo Tychyna…
September 26, 2017Samoylov as a soldier in the Red Army in the 1940s Translator’s note: In June 1944 David Samoylov (1920–1990), an important Russian-language poet who was then a soldier in the Red Army, was…
July 13, 2016Illustration of Joseph dreaming. Public Domain. A second-career medical interpreter for Russian immigrants in Boston contemplates his role—a biblical Joseph? a robot?—and the system that brings h…
June 8, 2016Walter A. Aue, “Geraniums,” 2011 “He’s growing on me,” a friend commented a few days after I sent her a small selection of Yevgeny Kropivnitsky’s poems. Considering the derivation of the poet’s surna…
December 9, 2015Victor Pelevin is one of the most interesting writers to have come out of contemporary Russia. Though not widely known in the West, Pelevin is a cultural phenomenon in his native land; his work is rea…- December 23, 2014Literary translation again filled the news in 2014. There were firsts to celebrate—the earliest-known Arabic stories were finally translated into English, and Deep Vellum Publishing, a new translation…
November 7, 2014Maaza Mengiste. Photo by Shevaun Williams News, Reviews, and Interviews Maaza Mengiste spoke with Mantle contributor Emmanuel Iduma this week about her phot…- September 26, 2014This week, readers everywhere (us included) celebrated Banned Books Week, which celebrates the freedom to read and authors whose books have been challenged, banned, and censored because of their conte…
February 18, 2014A Conversation with Ross Ufberg Today is the release date for The Good Life Elsewhere, Vladimir Lorchenkov’s scathing satire from Moldova. Born and currently living in Moldova, Lorchenkov is…
February 11, 2014Photo by Eugenijus Radlinskas/Flickr The image of translation as an essentially lonely business has slowly but surely given way to a fairer, more accurate picture. Even when a translated text bears t…
February 7, 2014From Art Made from Books: Altered, Sculpted, Carved, Transformed New partnerships and discoveries are at the heart of this week’s lit links. Two new poems authored by Sappho…- January 3, 2014We’re back! We hope you had a wonderful holiday and a great start to 2014. Below, catch up on all the literary news and tidbits you might have missed while celebrating. News, Reviews, and Inte…
- October 11, 2013This week was officially Nobel Prize week! Since September, we’ve watched the odds for each hopeful rise and drop, and we waited on the edge of our seats Thursday as the winner was revealed. And after…
June 25, 2013A Conversation with Boris Dralyuk I recently interviewed Boris Dralyuk, translator of A Slap in the Face: Four Russian Futurist Manifestos (now on pre-sale from Insert Blanc Press), about fu…
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Translators nominated for Best Literary Translations 2026 (top row, left to right): Vonani Bila, David Boyd, Whitney DeVos, Kit…
Photo by Alicia Christin Gerald / UnsplashWhen authorities take Penny Barnhill’s little girl, the single mother must get Phoebe back and find a…
Photo by KEA / Adobe StockWe met for the first time at a modern Chinese restaurant in the heart of Causeway Bay, the name of which is nowhere near as…
In her semi-autobiographical novel The Camp: A Little Girl from Karabakh (Shuddhashar, 2022), Gunel Movlud refers to her life as an…
The Christie Archive Trust, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsWho is the world’s most translated author? Agatha Christie? Antoine de Saint-…
